284 OF BARBAllOUS NAMES, 



known previously by any other, and when that name is 

 harmonious and easily reconcileable to the Latin tongue, 

 may be admitted, as that of the Japan shrub Aucuba\ 

 but such a word as Ginkgo is intolerable. The Roman 

 writers^ as Caesar, in describing foreign countries, have 

 occasionally latinized some words or names that fell 

 in their way, which may possibly excuse our making 

 Ailanthus of AylantOy or Pandamis of Pandang. 

 Still I can only barely tolerate such names out of de- 

 ference to the botanical merits, not the learning, of 

 their contrivers ; and I highly honour the zeal and 

 correctness of Mr. Salisbury, who, in defiance of all 

 undue authority, has ever opposed them, naming 

 Ailcuha^ on account of its singular base or receptacle, 

 Eubasis. I know not how Pandanus escaped his 

 reforming hand, especially as the plant has already a 

 good characteristic Greek name in the classical Forster, 

 Athrodactylis. 



Excellent Greek or Latin names are such as indicate 

 some striking peculiarity in the genus : as GlycyrrJdza, 

 a sweet root^ for the Liquorice; Aviaranthus, without 

 decay, for an everlasting flower ; HeUanthus, a sun- 

 flower; Lithospermum^ a stony seed; Eriocalia^y a 

 flower with a singularly woolly base or cup; Origa?ium, 

 an ornamental mountain plant; HemerocaUis, a beauty 

 of a day; A7'e7iari(i, a plant that inhabits sandy places; 



* When I named this genus in Exotic Botany, I was not aware of its 

 having previously been published by M. Billardiere under the name of 

 Actinotus ; a name however not tenable in Botany, because it has long 

 been preoccupied in Mineralogy. 



